OREANDA-NEWS. On October 25, 2007 the international rating agency Standard & Poor’s increased CenterTelecom’s domestic Russian corporate governance rating to CGR-5.2, up from CGR-5.0, and reaffirmed the international corporate governance rating of 5.0 and, according to CenterTelecom management’s decision,  has withdrawn a corporate governance rating for the company, reported the press-centre of CenterTelecom.
 
S&P had attributed the rise of the overall domestic rating to an increase in points assigned in the following categories: “Ownership structure and external influence” - up from 4.6 to 4.9; “Financial transparency, information disclosure and audit” - up from 5.3 to 5.6; and “Board of Directors’ structure and efficiency” – up from 4.3 to 4.6. According to S&P’s specialists, the higher rating reflected increased representation of minority shareholders on CenterTelecom’s Board of Directors, which partly is the result of the state’s sale of a 7% stake in early 2007.
 
S&P analysts assessed CenterTelecom in four categories for both international and domestic ratings, ranked from 1 to 10:
Ownership structure and external influence - international: 4+ / domestic: 4,9 (4+/4,6 previously)
Financial stakeholder rights and relations - 7/ 7,0 (no change)
Financial transparency, information disclosure and audit - 5+/ 5,6  (5/5,3 previously)
Board of Directors’ structure and efficiency - 4+ / 4,6 (4/4,3 previously)

Vaagn Martirosyan, General Director, CenterTelecom, commenting on CenterTelecom management’s decision challenging Standard&Poor's corporate rating, said : “We think that the results of the research into the company’s corporate governance system does not reflect in full CenterTelecom’s work improving its corporate governance procedures and bringing them into compliance with the highest world standards. Given the reliance of the S&P experts’ opinion of CenterTelecom’s corporate governance system on external factors, we think that it would be impractical to co-operate with S&P’s rating procedures in the near future. However we do not exclude that in future, CenterTelecom will address Standard & Poor's for further corporate governance rating assignments.”